WASHINGTON, D.C., August 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Barack Obama and National Right to Life went head-to-head over Obama's abortion record, and Obama blinked. The Democratic presidential candidate now has backed off his claims that pro-life advocates were "lying" over his vote to kill a bill that would have prevented infanticide in Illinois. Obama's campaign now acknowledges he "misrepresented" his position.

Obama's decision to sabotage the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) has repeatedly come back from the grave to haunt his campaign. Pro-life advocates, and National Right to Life, have hounded Obama over his "no" vote to BAIPA while a state senator in 2003.

BAIPA was a bill intended to clarify that any baby who is entirely expelled from his or her mother, and who shows any signs of life, is to be regarded as a legal "person" with all the rights thereto, whether or not the baby was born during an attempted abortion.

After appearing at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church on Saturday to debate John McCain, Obama sat down to an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) correspondent David Brody.

Brody asked Obama to respond to questions over why he voted "no" to BAIPA, since Obama voted down the Illinois version, which was exactly identical to a federal bill passed unanimously by the US Senate. Obama became visibly irritated and accused NRTL of "lying" about his record.

"They have not been telling the truth," Mr. Obama said. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."

Obama said he would have voted for a version like the federal BAIPA "even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion."

"So for people to suggest that I and the Illinois medical society, so Illinois doctors were somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive," said Obama.

However, twenty-four hours later, the Obama campaign made an about-face and admitted that Obama, not NRTL, had "misrepresented" his own position, which his critics have charged defies "commonsense" and "imagination."

The Obama campaign admitted to the New York Sun that Obama misrepresented his position when he told CBN that the federal version he says he supports, "was not the bill that was presented at the state level."

The campaign acknowledged Obama had voted against an identical bill in the Illinois Senate, but then said Obama was worried that even as worded, the legislation might have undermined existing Illinois abortion law.

National Right to Life posted records from the Illinois Legislature showing that Obama during his tenure as chairman of a Senate committee voted against a "Born Alive" bill in 2003 that contained virtually identical to the language written in the federal BAIPA. (http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/08/obama_campaign.ht...)

"The act of killing a just-born child was considered so heinous that the federal bill, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was supported by pro-abortion Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and unopposed by NARAL, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "Senator Obama's position in the Illinois senate was to oppose any legislation that would protect such innocent life. Everyone else was clear that the bill addressed infanticide not abortion."

I was watching the panelists at the end of Hannity & Colmes last night about this. Prager, Colter, and Pat Caddell, the Democratic pollster (who I like by the way). Prager and Caddell couldn't believe what Ann Colter was saying about Obama favoring infanticide (or at least not wanting to vote to protect babies who survive an abortion attempt).

Pat Caddell said that if it's true, Obama is going to have to deal with this issue because it's not going to go away. I've read the transcripts of Obama's hearing on this at the Illinois State Senate. There may even be a recording of it. Obama said that protecting the baby after it's outside his mother could eventually eliminate all abortions. Now that's actually at the heart of the moral dishonesty behind all late-term abortions, and Obama is taking the ultimate pro-abortion position here.

When he was spouting his radical rhetoric, all Obama was thinking of was his State Senator gig. He voted (four times) against the same Infant Protection bill that passed the US Senate 98-0.

This single issue--Obama's earlier words and actions in the Illinois Senate and his lies about it now--could very well sink him in General Election. But there are so many lies and contradictions, that Obama is going to destroy himself, with little outside help, by November.

This is absolute evil. We are not talking about differences that reasonable people can agree to disagree to. We are talking about evil. If you care more about votes than you do a fully-born, viable baby outside the womb, your are evil. Buck you, Ofama. May you burn in hell for all eternity...

This shows the extreme presumptuousness and arrogance of the Left, who thinks that they can just push these militant leftists on the American people, with useless platitudes of “hope”, “change”, and “fairness”, and that we won’t notice.

Telling the truth about them is a “lie”, and when they tell a baldfaced lie, like BHO did, they “misspoke”. For Pete’s sake, we have the damn voting record.

Maybe Hussein doesn’t know this - “above his pay grade”, perhaps? - but there is a thing called the Senate Record, or the House Record, where debate and votes are recorded? (for those in Rio Linda, that means it is written down)

I know there are things Senator McCain will say that will set me off. I accept that. Even so, I do not want someone in the White House that can’t even answer a simple question about when life begins, and has to take a literal minute to give the vapid answer he gave...”above my pay grade”?

Sooner or later the Left is going to realize that the reason the Republicans - not necessarily the conservatives - have resided in the White House for 28 of the last 40 years, and that the last three Democrat presidents were followed by two term Republican presidencies - their policies are repulsive, their words are repulsive, and no matter how much they try to carry the water for these folks, and accuse us of “swiftboating” (exposing their record), they will usually lose - if we beat them.

Some tried to “teach the Republicans a lesson” and it got us Pelosi, Reid, $4.50 gas and $145 oil (and continued blame of the “two oilmen in the White House”). The potential exists for a landslide not seen since the days of Mondale or McGovern. I was in high school for one, and diapers in the other. Now that I’m pushing 40, I’d love to see it again.

Obama said, specifically, in a floor speech, that this bill would impose too much burden on the woman. I’d really like a clear explanation of that, but I’ll never get one.

His defenders on this issue state something along the lines of

“just because he voted against a bill requiring medical attention doesn’t mean he favors infanticide”.

These muddle headed “grey” thinkers just can’t see that there are consequences to choices.
They’ve been brainwashed for too long into the belief that there shouldn’t be consequences, and there aren’t consequences.

17
posted on 08/19/2008 9:15:33 AM PDT
by MrB
(You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)

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